Hell Bent for Leather: Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict

My family’s appetite for AC/DC hadn’t progressed at quite the speed I’d initially expected. I was particularly let down by my father’s response, who, as a brilliant pianist, bass player and all-round musical Svengali to our family (when he felt like it), should have been the most appreciative. He became agitated when I played the DC on his fragile and expensive record player at objectionable volume while the family sat watching The Two Ronnies. He wasn’t completely anti-pop – he owned ‘Strawberry Fields’/ ’Penny Lane’, a T-Rex album, and a Chris Squire (out of Yes) solo album that someone had once given him by mistake. But whenever he heard the DC he would wrinkle up his face comically and hold his ears as Brian Johnson screeched out ‘What Do You Do for Money, Honey’ and ‘Let Me Put My Love Into You’ and ‘Givin’ the Dog a Bone’. I convinced myself that if he listened long and hard enough he’d eventually get it, just as I had. I said, ‘OK, maybe that one wasn’t so good, perhaps not the best, I agree, but hold on, listen to this one.’ And he’d light another Silk Cut and turn up the darts on the television and I would translate an annoyed movement of his mouth into acquiescence.

One Sunday he was lighting a fire with wet kindling and newspaper, a cigarette in his mouth, and I was playing him Highway to Hell, explaining each track as they came and went. His face was a picture of resigned indifference, but I was determined he’d like it this time. After all, it was my current favourite album, and Bon’s voice was easier than Brian’s, and my father didn’t have his fingers in his ears for once, which was a start. After ‘Shot Down in Flames’ he slowly took the cigarette from his lips and muttered, ‘I quite liked that one.’

Wow! I played it again straight away, fluffing the rewind button in my excitement, but next time when it finished he said, ‘But that one was bloody dreadful.’

‘It was the same one!’

‘Aha.’ Pleased with himself, he turned on the television.

‘Well, did you like it or not?’ I was hopping around, preparing to rewind it again, but he’d turned the TV up so loud he couldn’t hear me.

WHAT IS HEAVY METAL?

Heavy Metal is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as: ‘A style of rock music with a strong beat, played very loudly using electrical instruments’. I reckon they’ve nailed it. The Collins calls it: ‘A type of rock music characterised by high volume, a driving beat, and extended guitar solos, often with violent, nihilistic, and misogynistic lyrics’. It’s hard to disagree. And by Heavy Metal, I mean the real thing – the original full-fat knuckleduster motherfuckers. I’m talking about Metal’s Golden Age, which took place between 1969 (the first Led Zeppelin album), and 1991 (Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind). This book only takes into account events that took place between those two landmark dates, so if you’re here looking for some Slipknots, or The Limp Biscuits, you should search elsewhere.

Heavy Metal comes from two places: the blues, and a strange kind of bombastic neo-classical. Two famous Metal bands illustrate this well: Motorhead and Van Halen. Motorhead’s seminal (the Metal world adores the word seminal) No Sleep ’til Hammersmith, an album recorded at the genre’s High Temple, Hammersmith Odeon, is a Metal classic. Essentially it’s just a fast and mucky blues album howled out by a handlebar-moustached and wart-ridden speed-freak. In the other camp you’ve got Eddie Van Halen, guitarist in his eponymous group, who created a new style of Wagnerian arpeggio by playing his guitar’s neck two-handed, almost like a piano, using classical scales and phrasing, which went on to influence swathes of bouffant pomposity and Paganini plagiarism. There was no soul in that half – most Metal came straight out of the blues and those hoary old three chords, just played at ear-splitting levels – and in very tight trousers.

Why is the concept of high volume so important to the genre? It’s because otherwise it would be extremely boring. If you think about it, there are no subtle structural dynamics to listen out for – no artistry in construction to be intellectually appreciated and politely applauded – you’re not going to miss anything. The only question to ask during a Metal song is: when is the guitar solo? That’s all you really have to think about, so you’re free to jump up and down and make devil shapes with your hands, headbang if you feel like it, and brazenly punch the air to the battering flood of watts coming at you from all those Marshall amplifiers.

It’s primal, all the way through – stick-of-rock primal. Sound, volume, pummelling. It even hurts the next day. Brilliant!

The loudest musical performance ever recorded (so far), hitting a marauding 129.5 decibels (louder than a jet plane take-off), was achieved by an American band called Manowar during a concert in Germany. Manowar were one of those bands that gave Metal a bad name. They epitomised the clichés we were all so ashamed of. Manowar wore animal hides and fur, had huge biceps and Viking-style handlebar moustaches. They cut themselves with a ceremonial dagger and then signed their record contract in their own blood. They had names like Scott Columbus, Ross the Boss, Death Dealer and Rhino. They believed in True Metal (their own music), and dedicated their entire career to the vanquishment of their nemesis, False Metal (music other than their own).

Manowar set out to wither the competition with decibels and gesticulation. They succeeded up to a point, inspiring their huge and loyal fanbase to write letters into Kerrang! magazine accusing bands like Poison and Motley Crue of peddling False Metal, in terrible spelling. Every album Manowar released was even more epic than its predecessor, more grandiose in its warrior vision. They’re still going today, still topless and wearing loincloths, their moustaches just slightly craggier. False Metal is still out there winding them up, and they remain committed to destroying it. Joey, Manowar’s muscled bass player, sums up their ethos well: ‘The whole purpose of playing live is to blow people’s heads off. That’s what we do; that’s the energy of this band. We’re out there to kick ass. We’re out there to turn our gear on and blast. We’re out there to kill. That’s what Metal is. Anyone saying otherwise is not playing Heavy Metal. We will melt your face!’

Manowar.

Metal’s love of volume is ubiquitous. Here are some song titles celebrating, and, in some cases, frantically urging you to turn the volume up to aid your listening experience:

‘I Love it Loud’ – Kiss. A simple paean to loud music. Gene Simmons, the bat/demon character in the group, wants you to feel it right between the eyes.

‘Blow up your Speakers’ – Manowar. Speaks for itself. They also criticise MTV in this song, for not playing their music, a statement that to this day remains unrequited.

‘All Men Play on 10’ – Manowar again. Ten refers to the volume dial.

‘Blow up your Video’ – AC/DC. Because it’s not loud enough, and the speakers have already been blown up, elsewhere. This is another protest at lack of television airplay. It also makes the point that videos are commercial and unnecessary and somehow False Metal.

Loudness: the self-explanatory name of a Japanese Metal band of the 80s, humorously nicknamed Roudness by the Metal press. They wrote songs called ‘Rock Shock (More and More)’, ‘Burnin’ Eye Balls’, ‘Bloody Doom’, ‘Dogshit’, and my favourite, what-does-it-mean? ‘Hell Bites (from the Edge of Insanity)’.

‘For the Sake of Heaviness’ – Armoured Saint. Almost poetically honest.

‘Too Loud (For the Crowd)’ – Venom. (Metal loves brackets too.)

‘Louder than Hell’ – Motley Crue. Strangely, this song comes from the height of their poodle period, when you’d have thought being louder than hell was the last thing on their minds. This song isn’t loud at all.

(Manowar had a song called ‘Louder than Hell’ too.)

Although lyrics about how loud you play are evergreen, there are several basic lyrical themes which are even more beloved. These are: anything involving or referring to sex or the sexual act; travelling really fast; blowing things up (rebellious violence in the name of rock); and (preferably Norse) mythology. Any combination of these subjects is also completely fine, indeed combinations are essential if you’re going to have enough to write about over the course of a long career.

If a Metal band decides to stray from these well-trodden paths, they will usually end up producing a concept album. The concept album is Heavy Metal’s ultimate High Art statement, its holy grail of spiritual and intellectual achievement. Most Metal musicians will, at some point in their career, be inspired by a film they have seen, an obscure mythological tale they have read, or a social injustice they have stumbled across, and decide to retell that story via one continuous piece of music which often stretches over an entire double album. The result is usually a paper-thin narrative crudely welded on to a set of lyrically clumsy songs that are all still about sex and rebellion and mythology, but with spooky incidental music breaking up the individual tracks. These concept albums often come in expensive and showy packaging; fold-outs with poems and encrypted messages for their fans to unravel. Then, on the subsequent tour, at some point in the show they’ll play through the whole thing from start to finish, using tapes to fill in the linking bits they can’t play themselves, boring everybody in the audience who came to hear the songs which celebrate how loud the band is. Almost every Metal group makes a concept album at some point during their career, even Motorhead; it was about the First World War and it was called 1916.

Metal fans occasionally like to argue over what was the first ever Heavy Metal song. Often the answer is ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks. It’s got a rhythmic fuzzy guitar line and is clunky and unsupple; it piledrives. But the Kinks obviously weren’t Heavy Metal, so what bands can you call Metal? And are there different types? There are loads of different types, so here are a few handy pointers:

The Scorpions – Classic Heavy Metal from Germany

Def Leppard – New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM)

Meat Loaf – Panto Heavy Metal, but no-one likes him, he’s too fat, and uses too many keyboards

Slayer – Thrash Metal (slightly frightening)

Bon Jovi – Kind of Heavy Metal (especially if you are a girl)

Europe – (as above)

Marillion – Prog Rock (we tolerate them because we think they bring us intellectual credibility)

Genesis – (as above, for those slightly older)

Poison – Glam Metal (completely different from 70s Glam)

Michael Bolton – Heavy Metal (when he first started, believe it or not)

Led Zeppelin – Heavy Metal (though it pains me to say it)

Bryan Adams – Not Heavy Metal (but we like him anyway because he keeps it real)

Thin Lizzy – Trad. Arr. Irish Heavy Metal

Iron Butterfly – Heavy Metal with an Organ

If you think I’m being free and easy with my Heavy Metal tagging, I don’t care. It’s how artists were perceived by Metal fans that’s important here, not what their music actually sounded like. If Metal fans tended to like something, then whatever it was, it was allowed into the fold. Pretty much anybody could record a piece of pop fluff, but so long as it had a cranked-up guitar in there somewhere, no matter how low in the mix, or one of those solos (you know, a whiny one), then Metal fans would give it the collective thumbs up and allow themselves to buy it, or at least watch it endlessly on shitty pop TV; often it was the only way Metal could get anywhere near the charts.

At the absolute far end of Metal’s acceptability were Roxette, the Swedish Eurythmics of the late 1980s. Their music was primary-colour Euro synth-pop with shouty choruses, however because their portly guitar player had vaguely rock hair, wore his big rock guitar low, pulled the right shapes, made Os with his mouth and wore a tasselled leather jacket, some of us kidded ourselves into thinking we could actually hear a guitar in there, so in some quarters Roxette were tacked sheepishly on to the very edge of the Metal landscape. Kerrang! magazine would review their singles. They slated them, of course, but acknowledged their existence nevertheless. They weren’t so bad.

When Samantha Fox burst from Page Three on to our stereos, she too had the good sense to apply some ‘raunchy’ guitar to her miserable repertoire, with the same effect – grudging acceptance from the Metal community. At least she was ‘keeping it real’, with ‘proper instruments’. She also wore lots of denim, which helped slightly. There was even a time when Kate Bush was considered borderline Metal, but I’m still not sure why. I think it might have been a simple sex-object thing. Maybe it was just because she had really long hair. Or because she crimped it.

Heavy Metal is essentially a club, a gang with an allegiance to a musical and social set of values. It might be frowned upon by society at large, but that’s something that binds Metal even more tightly. Metal has always retained a dubious conservative mindset – black or gay Metallers are rare indeed. I’m not claiming the whole Metal community are a bunch of Daily Mail readers – heaven forbid, only most of them – but as a movement, and right through its 30-odd year history, those not of a WASP predilection have tended to align themselves somewhere else. They take one look at this bunch of clowns and for the rest of their lives say to themselves, ‘well, at least I’m not one of those …’ Metal fans know that people say this about them and they resent it; this partly fuels the ‘nihilism’ mentioned in the Collins Dictionary definition. This conservatism probably stems from Metal’s lack of outside stimuli from other musical or social trends; its bonding conformity has tended to squeeze out any progress society might have made since Metal’s inception, so ever since it has revolved around the old-fashioned ideals it’s always felt comfortable with.

The closest Metal has ever come to genuine inter-racial embrace (ignoring revered icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Phil Lynott, etc. who were unique individuals and succeeded despite rather than because of, the prevalent racial perception) was in the late 1980s, with the sudden appearance of Funk Metal and the all-black band Living Colour. These four chops-laden dudes from New York knocked down doors the genre had assumed would remain closed for ever, were tentatively embraced by an ethnically parched community, and fundamentally altered the rock landscape for the better. They set the pace for a glut of non-white rockers, who now had the freedom to express themselves within a format they had always loved but had nevertheless felt excluded from all these years. A few months down the line from Living Colour’s hit single ‘Cult of Personality’, every Metal band in the world had shoehorned a turgid funk track or two into their set, and were claiming Sly Stone and Funkadelic as deeply influential to their music. Funk was Metal’s ‘next step’ for a while – another blast of life-maintaining oxygen like the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (an exciting young vanguard of leather and perms in the late 70s that included Iron Maiden and Tygers of Pan Tang), the arrival of Guns n’ Roses in 1986, and the revolution of Thrash Metal, popularised by the likes of Metallica in the mid-80s. These arrivals kicked Heavy Metal’s perpetually fat and lazy arse and forced it into different directions – or at least kept us busy objecting to them. Metal would have died long before without their cumulative influences.

Homophobia is an accusation that one can direct much more easily. Heavy Metal has always been almost comically heterosexual, professing a collective horror at the antics of the homosexual pop fraternity and the gay community in general, which is ironic when you think about the basic trappings of the genre: long hair, tight leather trousers, phallic symbolism, make-up, bondage gear – the look is steeped in sexual ambiguity. The magnificent irony of this came in 1998, when the lead singer of arguably the ultimate Heavy Metal band, Judas Priest, left the group and outed himself live on MTV. Throughout his career Rob Halford had dressed in leather peaked caps, shaved his head and showered himself in blindingly camp iconography. Yet the sound of the Metal community’s jaw hitting the floor on his confession was loud indeed, and delightfully naïve. As with Freddie Mercury, it was suddenly all so obvious. Halford had even alluded to it in his anthem ‘Hell Bent For Leather’. But how were we supposed to tell from that?

Rob standing outside his mum’s house in Birmingham.

The most obvious visual sign of allegiance to the Heavy Metal cabal has always been in the long hair. In many ways it’s all you ever really need to demonstrate your purity, your unarguable virility. Short-haired Metallers always protest about this, but that’s only because they’ve been told they can’t have long hair by their parents or their bosses. Long-haired Metallers know this only too well and will always feel superior about it. Occasionally you get long-haired Metal musicians who cut their hair to be clever. They always grow it back again, though, unless they’ve done it because of baldness, in which case they wear a big hat, or a bandanna, or both at once with some sunglasses.

Wigs are more common than the world of Heavy Metal would like to admit. It’s vital to maintain the pretence that your hair will never fall out. Famous wig-wearers include all of Kiss, David Lee Roth and Ritchie Blackmore; W Axl Rose is just a rumour. Spinal Tap caused controversy just by wearing wigs in their film. It was as if the Metal community was saying, If they’re going to make a film about Metal, at least use people with real long hair.

The Heavy Metal community has never been one hundred per cent comfortable with the film Spinal Tap, despite its earnest claims to the contrary. The film’s frightening accuracy horrified Metal bands and fans alike when it was released in 1984, and the Metal community, as one, complained that it just wasn’t funny. But director Rob Reiner’s fondness for the subject and his attention to detail eventually won us over, until eventually it became bad form to protest. That is until the buggers decided to come back in the late 80s, this time as a ‘real band’, with a new album and gigs and everything. Oh no, not again, said Metal, and all the rock mags handed Break Like the Wind terrible, thank you very much now go away, reviews. The ‘band’ thought Metal fans would love it, as they’d been claiming to love the movie, but they didn’t, they hated it, and the whole project died a messy death.

Ha ha ha, who’s laughing now? we gloated.

Keep it True. Death to the False.

SILVER

It always troubled me that Alex got everything before me, if indeed I ever got it at all. It didn’t really matter because I was round at his place all the time anyway, but it still rankled, so I came up with a foolproof idea: I would invent my own AC/DC album, design a cover and a track listing for it, and try to convince Alex that it was the real thing. – a ‘lost’ DC album, never mentioned anywhere, found exclusively by me. It was a brilliant idea, except for one key element: I had no music to go with it. I would have to say that, unfortunately, I had mislaid the actual cassette along the way. Frustrating, yes, but these things happen. But it was brilliant, trust me. In fact Silver, the superb and legendary missing AC/DC album, was, in my humble opinion, The Greatest Record They Ever Made.

I constructed the cover out of black cardboard and wrote my much-practised AC/DC logo in silver pen in the middle. Underneath that I wrote Silver, all classy like, hardly smudging at all. Then I carefully listed ten made-up songs which I thought sounded like DC titles: ‘Stick it Further In’ and ‘Give it to me Heavy & Hot’ and ‘Let’s Rock Hard All Night’ and ‘AC/DC Forever’. I wrote those in silver pen on the inside, and the credits too – all tracks by Young, Young and Johnson, without a single mention of Hunter anywhere.

One afternoon as we walked downhill from home towards the water meadows, I showed Alex my cassette box with great pride and no hint of shame. I explained the extraordinary story behind the album, and the tragic tale of the lost cassette. Alex listened politely and toyed with the case. I described the songs, even sang him a few, then it went back in my pocket and we never mentioned it again.

It was around this time that I started my weekly charts in a green exercise book that I’d stolen from school. It was 1982 and I was sick of the charts on the TV and radio because there was no AC/DC in them. (There was that year, actually – ‘Nervous Shakedown’ sneaked in at the low 30s for one solitary week. I bought it, of course, and then pretended not to be disappointed when I realised it was exactly the same as it was on the album.) So to redress this imbalance I came up with the idea of compiling my own charts, based on my current favourite songs. Each week I solemnly transcribed my list of favourite songs by AC/DC into my exercise book. I would apply myself to this task with professorial fastidiousness, and pore over the slight drop of ‘High Voltage’, or the exciting new entry of ‘Let There Be Rock’. When I’d finally written out the placings, I’d spend half an hour reading down the chart in hysterical detail in the style of a Radio One DJ, comparing this week’s chart against last week’s. The track that spent the longest time at number one was the stunningly average ‘Up to my Neck in You’, which stayed up there for 13 weeks. It shrugged off all-comers, even ‘Bedlam in Belgium’, until, on a winter’s morning in 1983, two new songs from one new band gatecrashed the party.

The songs: ‘Flight of Icarus’ and ‘Run to the Hills’.

The band: Iron Maiden.

Alexander AC/DC is on the right – his rifle is real.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.